As someone who lived over 300 miles away from Mt. St. Helens in 1980, I can say ash sucks and I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that crap. But you can't just quit vacationing because solids are raining down on you , can you?

Volcanos on the Big Island generally don't work that way Subby. Their lava as a rule just isn't as viscous as that found in other volcanos along plate boundaries that sometimes that blow their tops off or create pyroclastic flows like Mt Vesuvius.

Anybody remember the old geezer who claimed that the authorities could fly him out in five minutes if the pyroclastic flow came his way? He is now in a safer place, between 45 and 100 feet below solid rock.

Apparently he underestimated the ease of flying a helicopter into a volcanic eruption, as well as the willingness of the authorities to spend the money and take the risks to save his sorry ass.

brantgoose:Anybody remember the old geezer who claimed that the authorities could fly him out in five minutes if the pyroclastic flow came his way? He is now in a safer place, between 45 and 100 feet below solid rock.

Apparently he underestimated the ease of flying a helicopter into a volcanic eruption, as well as the willingness of the authorities to spend the money and take the risks to save his sorry ass.

Actually almost everyone who lived in Pompeii took the threat seriously and survived because they left before shiat went down.

You can draw your own conclusions about the collective course of human intelligence over the last 2,000 years, but remember this: Pompeiians drank their water from lead pipes and they still had more sense than these people.

oa330_man:As someone who lived over 300 miles away from Mt. St. Helens in 1980, I can say ash sucks and I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that crap. But you can't just quit vacationing because solids are raining down on you , can you?

The anniversery is 2 days away, however I remember a Sunday morning driving with my dad and brother through downtown Oak Harbor with the windows down in a pickup when we heard a loud boom. We thought it was the Navy there testing a weapon or something. We found out later that day that Mt. St. Helens had exploded. Oak Harbor is 200 miles away.

stvdallas:The anniversery is 2 days away, however I remember a Sunday morning driving with my dad and brother through downtown Oak Harbor with the windows down in a pickup when we heard a loud boom. We thought it was the Navy there testing a weapon or something. We found out later that day that Mt. St. Helens had exploded. Oak Harbor is 200 miles away.

The explosion of Mt St Helens was more of a large, loud rumble in the Puget Sound area... so say most if the people in Bremerton that I talked to. I don't know, I was stuck down inside a boat with metal being beaten on all sides of me. I found out at lunch. There was no visible ash clouds in any of the eruptions that year.